Clementina Pallor

Clementina Pallor / Redemptio commencement - Humanity Receding / Redemption Begun
by Christopher Henry-Blair
(A note, this story, has many adult situations in the story.)
(The nature of the adult situations is not sexual, but graphical.)

Pain beyond anything I’d never known lanced inside me, bringing my mind to the waking state. Gazing about, I noted the spiraling and circling figures of different creatures, mythic normal, and some bizarre in their own right. Standing slightly apart from the rotating menagerie, I could only wonder what I was doing here, coupled with where I was. This question, without warning, again became something secondary to worry over, as the inner fire again returned with a vengeful, and time consuming presence.

I “became aware”, you could say, but it wouldn’t be the right word. The all consuming feeling faded away to a dull, but malevolent presence. I didn’t yet think to view what had happened, to wake from a dream into such searing pain, it wasn’t quite part of what I needed to know, or felt was important. My eyes again shifting and looking as the creatures rotated, centered on the form of a being of crystal fluidity, and of grace/graceful beauty beyond the mineralistic form.

The voice, I still can’t recall the words that were spoken in my lucid juxtapositions, just the implications of a fate that I now consider, as I gaze to the ruby scales jutting from my arms, and body. Scales.... And the fact that “some...thing...” now existed apart and with me, my own mind now its haven. The choice, a crucible, or the fact I lose myself to the beast inside....

I argued, I pleaded, I threatened....I tried everything to stop this, but time decided to force the issue, as the beast rose again, its gift leaving more marks on my arms this time, with the loss of time, indicative of the previous two happenings. After standing, and leaving, a bloody tent.... after all, what choice did I have in the matter with who I was hanging over the edge...

Overcast skies of slated gray, if one could call them skies. A city, a town, I can’t say, nor recall the utter contrast of my surrounding with the world it was in. Oil on water, this whole time of travel and worry began. My feet walking, I don’t know where I needed to be, or how to get there, but the desire, the needing drive to go was all I had with a mental step in lucid duality.

I don’t recall where my feet stopped, to see seven beings, men, and women, each of so many nationalities, hanging... from their throats, as others in boats of devising like mine, sat there, some in shock to light for even words, haunted by something I would soon understand. I approach an elderly man, who seemed at peace, with what, I never really knew or understood. His words, only a mere two sentences, changed so much, but left so much more... His words were a riddle, I wish, and I regret ever trying to solve it, and the price paid. My answer, I knew was wrong, the words sounded so false, a hollow attempt at hope. The rope dropped, his neck breaking like the sound a twig... His head, snapping from the force, hit with a gut churning pulp a mere heartbeat after his body, blood soaking white pristine clothes, as my duality was shattered in mirrored agony... And I awoke....